METACITIES project will establish an Excellence Hub that spans a large geographical area, that of Southeastern Europe, represented by three clusters in Cyprus, Greece, and Bulgaria. Each cluster consists of partners involved in the Quadruple Helix (i.e., scientific, industrial, social, public) with the aim to collaboratively design common digital Research and Innovation strategies, policies, and joint pilots, orchestrated towards the benefit of the citizens, the stakeholders, the local ecosystems and the growth of the whole southeast European region.
Starting from the Physical World, representing the actual city or region, METACITIES will propose a series of system blueprints and recommendations that can be used to successfully build their Digital Twins and Metaverses. METACITIES conceptual model represents an evolution of the notion of smart city, which usually implies the use of Information Communication Technologies for the processing of data and their statistical manifestations in the form of dashboards. As Digital Twins are directly and in real time, interconnected and interacting with the physical city, exchanging processing data and making decisions, they can execute actions on the city’s operations that may affect its daily life.
To jointly define long-term Research and Innovation strategies and implementation guidelines on Digital Twins and Metaverse technologies for smart regions in Southeastern Europe.
To identify reference Information Communication Technology architectures of upcoming technologies and infrastructures required to support METACITIES.
To design pilots for feasibility and Proof of Concepts for validation and feedback.
To identify an Integrated Business Process framework and Business Models for METACITIES.
To orchestrate and strengthen local ecosystems and channel their potential to accelerate digital transformation of cities and regions.
To maximize the impact and adoption of METACITIES approach.
As a R&I Competence Center for Emerging Smart Networks and Services, p-NET aims to become a common resource and shared facility, offering access to knowledge and expertise as well as attracting talents. The cumulative experience and competence as well as impact creation capabilities are core assets brought forward to the METACITIES project. p-NET assumes a key role in WP4 and the experimentation, validation, assessment, and piloting activities of the project. It is also involved in the definition of the cross-border collaboration framework (WP2) and in the research activities related to the development of digital twins and “metaverse city twins” (WP3). It will additionally be involved in awareness, knowledge transfer, and capacity building activities (WP6).